2 February 2012 Well I’ve just collected another year…it is now officially my “Birthday”. Number 71 but who’s counting???? This last month has again been full of amazing things including making a decision to or not to purchase a casita here in San Lucas. The decision was “not yet, we’ve still got a lot of traveling and exploring “before we set down roots and we’re sure something else will come along when we’re ready. The casita was right next door to Phil and Kathy’s and in a neighborhood that we’ve always liked a lot. It just came down to “timing”… Phil and Kathy had a bunch us up to their place for a Christmas party and that gave me a chance to take some pictures of their wonderful “Cabo Home”.

We’re still spending a lot of time getting together with “Cabo Friends” AND of course lots of beach time. One thing that Louise really wanted to do on this trip to the Baja was to swim with the amazing WHALE SHARK. During a dinner party at the Rohrer’s it was decided that the 4 of us would take the next weekend, head up to La Paz, and take a boat ride out to the whale shark area to swim with them. Prior to setting up the ride out to the whales we had heard that there were up to 70 whales that had come into the bay this last Fall but by the time we made it out to the area were they are the count was down to “maybe 6 to 10” if we’re lucky. Well we were out there for a good two plus hours before we spotted out first tail and dorsal fin showing above the water. You can’t imagine just how excited we were to finally see them. Because the water temperature was dropping we were all suited up in a wet suit to help us in staying in the water longer, and also it gave us extra buoyancy. There were 2 other boats with us but only about 5 or 6 swimmers in the water at a time. This really was nice as you really didn’t have competition around you when you were swimming beside this 40+- WHALE SHARK… The skipper would get us toward the front of the whale to give us time to slip over the side and KICK LIKE HELL to catch up to him/her. The vertical tail was about 8 to9 feet high and slowly moved from side to side but that “slowly” was enough to move it through the water at a pretty good pace.

We really did have to kick like hell to catch and stay with it. When you ran out of “poop” we would tread water and wait for our boat to come pick us up. After a short rest we were back in the water to do it all over again…three times and I was done, fully exhausted and fully excited for what we had just done. What an amazing experience…I just can’t get over how often we’ve had these opportunities of “amazing experiences”. We are so grateful for our health and the lifestyle that we’re living and wish you were all here with us.